Exaltation is a belief in Mormonism that after death some people will reach the highest level of salvation in the celestial kingdom and eternally live in God's presence, continue as families, become gods, create worlds, and make spirit children over whom they will govern.[1][2][3] In the largest Mormon denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), top leaders have taught that God wants exaltation for all humankind and that humans are "gods in embryo".[4][5][6] A verse in the LDS Church's canonized scripture states that those who are exalted will become gods,[7] and a 1925 statement from the church's highest governing body said that "All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother ... [and are] capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God."[11]
The LDS Church teaches that through exaltation believers may become joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.[12][13][14] A popular Mormon quote—often attributed to the early apostle Lorenzo Snow in 1837—is "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be."[15][16][17]
According to Mormonism, certain ordinances are required of all those who hope to obtain exaltation. The ordinances that are required for exaltation are called "saving ordinances". The saving ordinances are
The endowment and celestial marriage take place in temples. Latter-day Saints are taught that they can receive exaltation through performing saving ordinances.[9]: 541 Performance of the saving ordinances does not guarantee exaltation. Rather, individuals must do their best to be faithful to the covenants that the ordinances represent.
For those who have lived and died without having received these ordinances, it is believed that exaltation will be available through LDS Church vicarious temple work. Latter-day Saints perform the saving ordinances on each other in temples on behalf of those who are dead. Latter-day Saints believe that all individuals will have an equitable and fair opportunity to hear the "fullness of the gospel" and that those who did not have an opportunity to accept the saving ordinances in this life will subsequently have the opportunity to accept them in the spirit world. Acceptance of the saving ordinances by those who have died is voluntary and does not take away the agency of those individuals. Should an individual who is in the spirit world subsequently reject saving ordinances performed for them, it would be as if these ordinances were never performed. It is taught that some will accept them, and others will reject them.[20][21][22]
There is currently a less common temple ordinance which confers exaltation called the second anointing.[23] It is the pinnacle ordinance of the temple and an extension of the Nauvoo endowment[24][25] which founder Joseph Smith taught was to ensure salvation, guarantee exaltation, and confer godhood.[23][26][27] In the ordinance, a participant is anointed as a "priest and king" or a "priestess and queen", and is sealed to the highest degree of salvation available in Mormon theology. The ordinance is currently only given in secret to a few select couples chosen by top leaders,[28][29][30] and presently most LDS adherents are unaware of the ritual's existence.[31][25]
The LDS Church teaches that those who receive exaltation will:
- live eternally in the presence of God the Father and Jesus Christ;
- become gods;[9]: 541–543
- be united eternally with their righteous family members and will be able to have eternal offspring;[38]
- receive a fulness of joy; and;
- be given everything that God the Father and Jesus Christ have—all power, glory, dominion, and knowledge.[39]
The church teaches that after death exalted individuals will continue having marital sexual relations, create worlds, and have spirit children over which they will govern as gods.[1][40][41] Recent examples of this include a 2010 church manual which states that after death exalted adherents can "develop a kingdom over which [they] will preside as its king and god."[9]: 542 [42] This teaching is also echoed in a 2002 church manual which says exalted people "will [...] make new worlds for [their spirit children] to live on",[37]: 27 [3] and in a 2006 Ensign article which says if adherents are faithful and follow God's commandments they can receive, "a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever, and perhaps through our faithfulness to have the opportunity of building worlds and peopling them."[43]
A 2020 Sunday School manual says, "marital intimacy is glorious and will continue eternally for covenant-keeping husbands and wives."[44][45] A 2013 student manual quotes a former church president who taught future exalted people can "organize matter into worlds on which their posterity may dwell, and over which they shall rule as gods."[46][47]
Gendered inequality in exaltation
Women and men in the LDS Church are both eligible for exaltation, but the nature of that exaltation has "considerable uncertainty" for women, and sources point to women being "lesser deities subordinated to their husbands."[50] Additionally, though both a husband and wife need each other for exaltation, a husband helps the wife attain it in a way the wife doesn't for the husband,[48]: 55–59 and an exalted man can have unlimited wives while an exalted woman can only have one husband.[51]
Those who reject the ordinances are still believed to have the opportunity to inherit a kingdom of glory distinct from and of less glory than the celestial kingdom: the terrestrial kingdom or the telestial kingdom[52][53] Exaltation in the celestial kingdom is the ultimate goal of faithful LDS Church members.
Carter, K. Codell (1992). "Godhood". In Ludlow, Daniel H. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Mormonism. New York City: Macmillan Publishers. pp. 553, 555. ISBN 978-0-02-904040-9. They [resurrected and perfected mortals] will dwell again with God the Father, and live and act like him in endless worlds of happiness ... above all they will have the power of procreating endless lives. ... Those who become like him will likewise contribute to this eternal process by adding further spirit offspring to the eternal family.
Gospel Fundamentals (PDF) (2002 ed.). Salt Lake City: LDS Church. p. 201. They [the people who will live in the celestial kingdom] will receive everything our Father in Heaven has and will become like Him. They will even be able to have spirit children and make new worlds for them to live on, and do all the things our Father in Heaven has done.
Prince, Greg (August 15, 1995). "Ordinances: The Second Anointing". Power from on High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. pp. 189, 191. ISBN 978-1560850717. Archived from the original on August 17, 2022 – via Internet Archive. On 10 March 1844 Smith delivered a discourse on the subject of Elijah in which he gave his most complete explanation of the second anointing. He said ... [t]he function of the ordinance was to assure salvation ... Other ordinances considered essential for exaltation were generally held to be conditional—that is, the ordinance enabled exaltation, but the subsequent righteousness of the recipient secured it. By contrast, the second anointing guaranteed one's exaltation, and thus may be viewed as the crowning ordinance of Smith's ministry.
Blythe, Christopher James (May 2011). Recreating Religion: The Response to Joseph Smith Innovations in the Second Prophetic Generation of Mormonism (MA). Utah State University. p. 31. [Alpheus] Cutler was among the few trusted followers of Joseph Smith to receive their endowments during the Mormon Prophet's lifetime. And when Smith revealed the pinnacle ordinance of Mormonism, the second anointing, Cutler was the sixth person to receive it—on November 15, 1843, a week before the president of the quorum of twelve apostles, Brigham Young, received his second anointing. Through this ceremony, Joseph Smith ordained Cutler to the office of king and priest, a position that contained the fullness of the Melchizedek Priesthood.
Buerger, David J. (1983). "'The Fulness of the Priesthood': The Second Anointing in Latter-day Saint Theology and Practice" (PDF). Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 16 (1): 21, 36–37. doi:10.2307/45225125. JSTOR 45225125. Godhood was therefore the meaning of this higher ordinance, or second anointing, for the previously revealed promises in Doctrine and Covenants 132:19–26 implicitly referred not to those who had been sealed in celestial marriage but to those who had been sealed and ordained 'kings and priests,' 'queens and priestesses' to God. ... [I]t is not known to what degree the conferral of godhood by the second anointing was held to be conditional or unconditional. Most of the earliest nineteenth-century comments explicitly dealing with the second anointing clearly imply that the ordinance was then held to be unconditional. ... The unconditional promise of exaltation in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom as gods and goddesses inherent in this priesthood sealing ordinance of Elijah was weighty indeed ....
Buerger, David J. (December 15, 2002). "Joseph Smith's Ritual". The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship. Signature Books. p. 89. ISBN 978-1560851769. Brother Brigham Young, I [Heber C. Kimball] pour this holy consecrated oil upon your head and anoint thee a king and a priest of the most high God ... And I seal thee up unto eternal life, that thou shalt ... attain unto the eternal Godhead and receive a fulness of joy, and glory, and power; and that thou mayest do all things ... even if it be to create worlds and redeem them.
Kramer, Bradley H. (2014). Keeping the Sacred: Structured Silence in the Enactment of Priesthood Authority, Gendered Worship, and Sacramental Kinship in Mormonism (PDF) (PhD). University of Michigan. p. 33. The public/open secrecy of temple-work in general stands in contrast to the actual and absolute secrecy of one particular feature of its ritual corpus: the ordinance known variously as the Second Anointing (or Second Anointings), second endowment, or the Fullness of the Priesthood. The blessings of this ordinance are conferred onto only a very small number of Mormons, usually after the better part of a lifetime of faithful and loyal service. ... These rites are a closed, absolute secret. Only those Mormons considered most trustworthy by high Church leadership are invited to participate, and they are expressly instructed not to disclose anything about the ordinance, including their own participation in it, to anyone, including family (only married couples participate in the rite).
Quinn, D. Michael (1992). "17. Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843". In Hanks, Maxine (ed.). Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. p. 377. ISBN 1-56085-014-0. Currently some women have received this 'fullness of the priesthood' with their husbands. In the Salt Lake temple, the second anointing still occurs in the 'Holy of Holies' room which James E. Talmage wrote 'is reserved for the higher ordinances in the Priesthood...' The second anointing for both men and women is distinct from ordination to church priesthood offices.
Simmons, Brian (December 2017). Coming out Mormon: An examination of religious orientation, spiritual trauma, and PTSD among Mormon and ex-Mormon LGBTQQA adults (PDF). University of Georgia Theses and Dissertations (PhD). Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia. p. 65. [A] current temple recommend [allows one] to participate in temple ordinances. In order to hold a current temple recommend, a person must attest to their ecclesiastical leaders that they maintain faith in the LDS Church, and live according to the standards (including no sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage and abstaining from coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs).
Beaver, Michelle (March 11, 2011). "Mormon church has a fractured history with gays". The Mercury News. San Jose, California: Digital First Media. Retrieved January 16, 2023. There are three levels to the heaven in which Mormons believe, and to make it to the highest level, one must be married. Perhaps the most sacred church ordinance is the temple marriage, a "sealing" between a man and a woman that is believed to be eternal, according to Richley Crapo, a Utah State University professor. There is no place for homosexuality in Mormon marriages, and no place for noncelibate homosexuals in the top level of Mormon heaven, unless that person has repented accordingly in the afterlife.
Scholl Shurtz, Charlotte (Spring 2022). "A Queer Heavenly Family: Expanding Godhood Beyond a Heterosexual, Cisgender Couple". Dialogue. 55 (1). University of Illinois Press: 77—80. [F]ocusing on Heavenly Mother in the context of her marital relationship with Heavenly Father enforces binaries that exclude non-heterosexual relationships from potential godhood. Third, because narratives about Heavenly Mother's and Heavenly Father's gendered embodiment promotes cisnormativity, transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals are excluded from potential godhood. ... Pairing Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father as a husband and wife who could only become gods as a couple suggests that heterosexuality is essential to godhood. ... [T]he 'idea of a natural or inherent binary sexual difference in LDS discourse makes a legible "sex" the prerequisite to personhood,' meaning that non-cisgender individuals are 'illegible as children of God [with] divine potentials.' Using Heavenly Mother's embodiment to cisgender reality withholds the potential of godhood from transgender, nonbinary, intersex, and gender-fluid individuals.
Ricks, Shirley S. "Eternal Lives, Eternal Increase". In Ludlow, Daniel H. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Mormonism. New York City: Macmillan Publishers. p. 465. ISBN 978-0-02-904040-9. A husband and wife who are married [...] are promised they shall inherit 'thrones, kingdoms [...] and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.' [...] They share in the promises of eternal posterity made to Abraham and Sarah [...] '[that they should] continue as innumerable as the stars' [...] and enjoy a continuation of seeds forever, or eternal increase.
"Chapter 10: The Purpose of Earth Life". Doctrines of the Gospel: Student Manual (2010 2nd ed.). Salt Lake City: LDS Church. 2010. p. 29. Each one of you has it within the realm of his possibility to develop a kingdom over which you will preside as its king and god. You will need to develop yourself and grow in ability and power and worthiness, to govern such a world with all of its people.
"Alma 39–42: The Great Plan of Happiness". Come, Follow Me—For Sunday School: Book of Mormon 2020. Salt Lake City: LDS Church. 2020. Worldly sex becomes a total obsession because it never fulfills its promises. God-ordained marital intimacy is glorious and will continue eternally for covenant-keeping husbands and wives.
"Kingdoms of Glory and Perdition". Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual (2nd ed.). LDS Church. 2010. The celestial kingdom is reserved for the members of the Church who have a testimony of Christ and live a Christian life. The terrestrial kingdom is for the honorable and virtuous people of the world as well as those who reject the gospel. The telestial kingdom is for the murderers, robbers, and liars. The celestial kingdom has two separate classes, those who are married and those who are not, who will be servants to others.
